Experimental Validation of an Antilock Braking System for Snowmobiles With Lateral Stability Considerations

Antilock braking systems are one of the most important safety systems for wheeled vehicles. They reduce the braking distance and, most importantly, help the user maintain controllability and steerability of the vehicle. This brief extends and adapts the concept of ABSs to tracked vehicles, in particular to snowmobiles. Snowmobiles are an interesting development platform for two main reasons: 1) track dynamics, despite being analogous to tire dynamics, present important differences that help understanding the features of the control algorithm and 2) snowmobiles are simple and rugged vehicles with a limited set of sensors, making the design of an effective control system challenging. This brief designs a track-deceleration-based ABS algorithm and tests it both in straight riding and cornering. The analysis shows that on snowmobiles, ABSs have negligible advantages in term of stopping distance, but are beneficial in terms of steerability and stability, especially during cornering.